2002 Portuguese legislative election

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2002 Portuguese legislative election

← 1999 17 March 2002 2005 →

230 seats to the Portuguese Assembly
116 seats needed for a majority
Registered 8,902,713 Increase0.4%
Turnout 5,473,655 (61.5%)
Increase0.4 pp
  First party Second party Third party
  Jose Manuel Barroso, EU-kommissionens ordforande, under ett mote i Folketinget 2006-05-19 (1).jpg Ferro Rodrigues.jpg 170x170px
Leader José Manuel Barroso Ferro Rodrigues Paulo Portas
Party PSD PS CDS–PP
Leader since 2 May 1999 20 January 2002 22 March 1998
Leader's seat Lisbon[2] Lisbon[3] Aveiro[1]
Last election 81 seats, 32.3% 115 seats, 44.1% 15 seats, 8.3%
Seats won 105 96 14
Seat change Increase 24 Decrease 19 Decrease 1
Popular vote 2,200,765 2,068,584 477,350
Percentage 40.2% 37.8% 8.7%
Swing Increase 7.9 pp Decrease 6.3 pp Increase 0.4 pp

  Fourth party Fifth party
 
Leader Carlos Carvalhas Francisco Louçã
Party PCP Left Bloc (Portugal)
Alliance CDU
Leader since 5 December 1992 24 March 1999
Leader's seat Lisbon[4] Lisbon[5]
Last election 17 seats, 9.0% 2 seats, 2.4%
Seats won 12 3
Seat change Decrease 5 Increase 1
Popular vote 379,870 153,877
Percentage 6.9% 2.7%
Swing Decrease 2.0 pp Increase 0.4 pp

230px

Prime Minister before election

António Guterres
PS

Prime Minister after election

José Manuel Barroso
PSD

The 2002 Portuguese legislative election took place on 17 March. The election renewed all 230 members of the Assembly of the Republic.

These elections were called after the resignation of the then incumbent Prime Minister, António Guterres after the defeat of the Socialist Party in the 2001 local elections. That fact, plus the problematic state of the country's finances were the main arguments of the right-wing parties, which led them to be the favourites to win the election.

With just over 40% of the votes cast, the Social Democrats regained the status as the largest political force in Portugal, although the Socialists won almost 38% of the vote. This was, and still is, the smallest difference between the two major parties in Portugal. This short distance also appears on the electoral map, with each party winning eleven of the 22 districts, while the PS won the most populous, Lisbon and Porto. As a result, the Social Democrats fail to win the absolute majority they had between 1987 and 1995.

As no Party got an absolute majority, the Social Democrats formed a coalition with the right-wing People's Party. The left-wing Democratic Unity Coalition achieved the lowest result ever, finishing in the third place in its traditional strongholds, Évora and Setúbal. The Left Bloc gained one MP. Turnout was slightly higher than it was in 1999 but remained quite low, marking a growing separation between the politics and the Portuguese people, mainly due to the image of the politicians as corrupts and the idea that all the parties are the same.

Voter turnout was slightly higher than in 1999, as 61.5% of the electorate cast a ballot.

Background

Fall of the government

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After the disappointing results of the Socialist Party (PS) in the 1999 elections, the PS government entered in a series of crisis.[6] Resignations of ministers from government and incapacity of passing legislation in Parliament led to controversial, and weird, alliances, like the 2000 and 2001 budgets which were approved by a sole CDS – People's Party (CDS–PP) Member of Parliament, Daniel Campelo, in exchange for the government approving a cheese factory in Campelo's hometown, Ponte de Lima.[7]

The Socialist Party suffered a big, and unexpected, defeat in the December 2001 local elections.[8] The party lost major cities across the country, mainly Lisbon, Porto, Sintra and Coimbra to the Social Democratic Party. Due to this surprising defeat, Prime Minister António Guterres announced he was to tender his resignation as Prime Minister in order to avoid the country falling "into a political swamp".[9] Shortly after, President Jorge Sampaio accepted Guterres resignation and called snap elections for March 2002.[10]

Leadership changes

PSD 2000 leadership election

After the 1999 election defeat, Durão Barroso's leadership started to be challenged and criticized.[11] In January 2000, Durão Barroso called a snap party congress to resolve the leadership dispute.[12] Alongside Barroso, Pedro Santana Lopes and Luís Marques Mendes also ran. Durão Barroso was reelected as PSD leader and the results were the following:

Ballot: 27 February 2000
Candidate Votes %
José Manuel Durão Barroso 469 50.3
Pedro Santana Lopes 313 33.6
Luís Marques Mendes 150 16.1
Turnout 932
Source: Results

PS 2002 leadership election

Following the resignation of António Guterres as Prime Minister and PS leader,[13] the party started the process to elect a new leader. The popular minister in Guterres cabinet, Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, and PS member Paulo Penedos, were the two candidates on the ballot. Around 121,000 PS members were registered to vote.[14] In the end, Ferro Rodrigues got almost unanimous support by being elected with almost 97% of the votes.[15] The results were the following:

Ballot: 18 and 19 January 2002
Candidate Votes %
Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues 96.5
Paulo Penedos 2.7
Blank/Invalid ballots 0.8
Turnout
Source: Results

Electoral system

File:Eleições legislativas 2002.png
Official logo of the election.

The Assembly of the Republic has 230 members elected to four-year terms. Governments do not require absolute majority support of the Assembly to hold office, as even if the number of opposers of government is larger than that of the supporters, the number of opposers still needs to be equal or greater than 116 (absolute majority) for both the Government's Programme to be rejected or for a motion of no confidence to be approved.[16]

The number of seats assigned to each district depends on the district magnitude.[17] The use of the d'Hondt method makes for a higher effective threshold than certain other allocation methods such as the Hare quota or Sainte-Laguë method, which are more generous to small parties.[18]

For these elections, and compared with the 1999 elections, the MPs distributed by districts were the following:[19]

District Number of MPs Map
Lisbon(–1) 48
18
6
38
5
4
15
9
4
10
5
10
10
48
3
3
17
3
8
5
5
2
2
Porto(+1) 38
Braga(+1) 18
Setúbal 17
Aveiro 15
Leiria, Santarém and Coimbra 10
Viseu 9
Faro 8
Viana do Castelo 6
Azores, Castelo Branco, Madeira and Vila Real 5
Bragança and Guarda 4
Beja, Évora(–1) and Portalegre 3
Europe and Outside Europe 2

Parties

The table below lists the parties represented in the Assembly of the Republic during the 8th legislature (1999–2002) and that also partook in the election:

Name Ideology Political position Leader 1999 result
Votes (%) Seats
PS Socialist Party
Partido Socialista
Social democracy Centre-left Ferro Rodrigues 44.1%
115 / 230
PPD/PSD Social Democratic Party
Partido Social Democrata
Liberal conservatism
Classical liberalism
Centre-right José Manuel Durão Barroso 32.3%
81 / 230
PCP Portuguese Communist Party
Partido Comunista Português
Communism
Marxism–Leninism
Far-left Carlos Carvalhas 9.0%
[lower-alpha 1]
15 / 230
PEV Ecologist Party "The Greens"
Partido Ecologista "Os Verdes"
Eco-socialism
Green politics
Left-wing Isabel Castro
2 / 230
CDS-PP CDS – People's Party
Centro Democrático e Social – Partido Popular
Christian democracy
Conservatism
Centre-right
to right-wing
Paulo Portas 8.3%
15 / 230
BE Left Bloc
Bloco de Esquerda
Democratic socialism
Anti-capitalism
Left-wing Francisco Louçã 2.4%
2 / 230

Campaign period

Party slogans

Party or alliance Original slogan English translation Refs
PS "Fazer bem" "Doing well" [20]
PSD « Somos todos Portugal. » "We are all Portugal" [21]
CDU "Mudar para melhor" "Change for the better" [22]
CDS–PP « O braço direito de Portugal » "Portugal's right-hand man" [23]
BE « Com Razões Fortes » "With strong reasons" [24]

Candidates' debates

2002 Portuguese legislative election debates
Date Organisers Moderator(s)     P  Present    A  Absent invitee  N  Non-invitee 
PS
Rodrigues
PSD
Barroso
CDU
Carvalhas
CDS–PP
Portas
BE
Louçã
Refs
26 Feb SIC P P N N N [25]
12 Mar RTP1 Judite de Sousa
José Alberto Carvalho
P P P P P [26]

Opinion polling

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The following table shows the opinion polls of voting intention of the Portuguese voters before the election. Those parties that are listed were represented in parliament (1999-2002). Included is also the result of the Portuguese general elections in 1999 and 2002 for reference.

      Exit poll

Date Released Polling Firm PS PSD CDU CDS–PP BE Others Lead
17 Mar 2002 Leg. Election 37.8
96
40.2
105
6.9
12
8.7
14
2.7
3
3.7
0
2.4
17 Mar 2002 (20:00) RTP1 - Universidade Católica 36.0–41.0 37.0–42.0 5.5–8.0 7.5–10.0 3.0–4.0 1.0
17 Mar 2002 (20:00) SIC - Eurosondagem 35.5–39.3 40.1–43.9 6.2–8.4 6.2–8.4 2.0–3.4 4.6
17 Mar 2002 (20:00) TVI - INTERCAMPUS 35.5–40.5 37.8–42.8 6.8–9.8 5.3–8.3 1.6–4.2 2.3
15 Mar 2002 Marktest 35.2 43.7 8.1 6.0 3.7 3.3 8.5
15 Mar 2002 Lusófona 40.9 43.6 5.7 7.1 2.8 N/A 2.7
15 Mar 2002 Eurosondagem 39.3 41.4 6.9 5.6 3.5 3.3 2.1
15 Mar 2002 Eurequipa 33.9 44.7 7.1 9.1 3.2 2.0 10.8
15 Mar 2002 Universidade Católica 37.5 42.2 6.9 6.8 3.6 3.0 4.7
14 Mar 2002 INTERCAMPUS 39.0 41.0 8.0 5.0 3.0 4.0 2.0
14 Mar 2002 Aximage 40.0 44.0 7.0 6.0 2.0 1.0 4.0
13 Mar 2002 SIC/Visão 36.2 41.0 6.6 5.2 2.0 9.0 4.8
8 Mar 2002 Marktest 36.0 43.0 6.0 7.0 4.0 4.0 7.0
2 Mar 2002 Eurosondagem 35.0 38.0 6.0 5.0 2.0 14.0 3.0
27 Feb 2002 Universidade Católica 35.6 43.5 N/A N/A N/A 20.9 7.9
Feb 2002 Marktest 34.7 45.7 6.7 7.3 2.5 3.1 11.0
Jan 2002 Marktest 33.8 41.8 9.6 8.1 2.5 4.2 8.0
22 Dec 2001 Marktest 34.0 39.0 11.0 9.0 3.0 4.0 5.0
16 Dec 2001 Local Elections 37.1 41.0 10.6 4.0 1.2 6.1 3.9
Nov 2001 Marktest 35.4 33.7 10.6 11.6 2.9 5.8 1.7
Oct 2001 Marktest 35.9 33.9 10.5 11.5 2.7 5.5 2.0
26 Jan 2001 Marktest 37.0 33.0 10.0 11.0 3.0 6.0 4.0
10 Oct 1999 Leg. Election 44.1
115
32.3
81
9.0
17
8.3
15
2.4
2
3.9
0
11.9

National summary of votes and seats

Summary of the 17 March 2002 Assembly of the Republic elections results
Parties Votes % ± MPs MPs %/
votes %
1999 2002 ± % ±
style="width: 5px; background-color: #FF9900;" data-sort-value="Social Democratic Party (Portugal)" | Social Democratic 2,200,765 40.21 Increase7.9 81 105 Increase24 45.65 Increase10.4 1.14
style="width: 5px; background-color: #FF66FF;" data-sort-value="Socialist Party (Portugal)" | Socialist 2,068,584 37.79 Decrease6.3 115 96 Decrease19 41.74 Decrease8.3 1.10
style="width: 5px; background-color: #0093DD;" data-sort-value="CDS – People's Party" | People's 477,350 8.72 Increase0.4 15 14 Decrease1 6.09 Decrease0.4 0.70
style="width: 5px; background-color: #FF0000;" data-sort-value="Democratic Unity Coalition" | Democratic Unity Coalition[lower-alpha 2] 379,870 6.94 Decrease2.1 17 12 Decrease5 5.22 Decrease2.2 0.75
style="width: 5px; background-color: Template:Left Bloc (Portugal)/meta/color;" data-sort-value="Left Bloc (Portugal)" | Left Bloc 149,966 2.74 Increase0.3 2 3 Increase1 1.30 Increase0.4 0.47
style="width: 5px; background-color: #CC0000;" data-sort-value="Communist Party of the Portuguese Workers / Reorganizative Movement of the Party of the Proletariat" | Portuguese Workers' Communist 36,193 0.66 Decrease0.0 0 0 Steady0 0.00 Steady0.0 0.0
style="width: 5px; background-color: #013220;" data-sort-value="Earth Party" | Earth Party 15,540 0.28 Decrease0.1 0 0 Steady0 0.00 Steady0.0 0.0
style="width: 5px; background-color: #005FAD;" data-sort-value="People's Monarchist Party (Portugal)" | People's Monarchist Party 12,398 0.23 Decrease0.1 0 0 Steady0 0.00 Steady0.0 0.0
style="width: 5px; background-color: #FF7F00;" data-sort-value="Humanist Party (Portugal)" | Humanist 11,472 0.21 Increase0.1 0 0 Steady0 0.00 Steady0.0 0.0
style="width: 5px; background-color: #002147;" data-sort-value="National Renovator Party" | National Renovator 4,712 0.09 N/A N/A 0 N/A 0.00 N/A 0.0
style="width: 5px; background-color: #FF0000;" data-sort-value="Workers Party of Socialist Unity" | Workers Party of Socialist Unity 4,316 0.08 Steady0.0 0 0 Steady0 0.00 Steady0.0 0.0
Left Bloc/People's Democratic Union[lower-alpha 3] 3,911 0.07 N/A N/A 0 N/A 0.00 N/A 0.0
National Solidarity[lower-alpha 4][27] 0 0.00 Decrease0.2 0 0 Steady0 0.00 Steady0.0 0.0
Total valid 5,365,881 98.03 Increase0.0 230 230 Steady0 100.00 Steady0.0
Blank ballots 55,121 1.01 Decrease0.1
Invalid ballots 52,653 0.96 Increase0.0
Total 5,473,655 100.00
Registered voters/turnout 8,902,713 61.48 Increase0.4
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições
Vote share
PSD
  
40.21%
PS
  
37.79%
CDS-PP
  
8.72%
CDU
  
6.94%
BE
  
2.74%
PCTP/MRPP
  
0.66%
Others
  
0.96%
Blank/Invalid
  
1.97%
Parliamentary seats
PSD
  
45.65%
PS
  
41.74%
CDS-PP
  
6.09%
CDU
  
5.22%
BE
  
1.30%

Distribution by constituency

Results of the 2002 election of the Portuguese Assembly of the Republic
by constituency
Constituency % S % S % S % S % S Total
S
PSD PS CDS–PP CDU BE
Azores 45.4 3 41.0 2 8.4 - 1.4 - 1.4 - 5
Aveiro 46.4 8 33.5 5 12.9 2 2.6 - 1.8 - 15
Beja 21.2 - 43.5 2 3.7 - 24.2 1 1.9 - 3
Braga 44.4 9 37.4 8 9.3 1 4.4 - 1.7 - 18
Bragança 53.2 3 30.0 1 10.9 - 1.9 - 0.9 - 4
Castelo Branco 38.3 2 46.1 3 7.1 - 3.3 - 1.5 - 5
Coimbra 41.0 5 41.3 5 6.7 - 5.1 - 2.4 - 10
Évora 25.3 1 42.8 1 4.6 - 21.8 1 1.8 - 3
Faro 37.7 4 40.5 4 8.3 - 6.3 - 2.8 - 8
Guarda 48.5 2 34.7 2 9.6 - 2.2 - 1.2 - 4
Leiria 50.8 6 29.5 3 9.8 1 4.1 - 2.2 - 10
Lisbon 35.7 18 38.7 20 8.5 4 8.8 4 4.7 2 48
Madeira 53.5 4 25.8 1 12.1 - 2.5 - 3.1 - 5
Portalegre 30.6 1 45.2 2 6.4 - 12.4 - 1.6 - 3
Porto 40.0 16 41.2 17 8.4 3 4.6 1 2.7 1 38
Santarém 38.1 4 38.4 4 8.4 1 8.6 1 2.9 - 10
Setúbal 24.7 5 39.3 7 6.9 1 20.5 4 4.6 - 17
Viana do Castelo 45.5 3 35.3 3 10.3 - 3.5 - 1.8 - 6
Vila Real 54.1 3 31.9 2 8.1 - 2.0 - 0.9 - 5
Viseu 52.1 5 31.1 3 10.6 1 1.5 - 1.4 - 9
Europe 36.9 1 42.1 1 5.0 - 4.8 - 1.1 - 2
Outside Europe 66.3 2 21.5 - 3.4 - 0.9 - 0.4 - 2
Total 40.2 105 37.8 96 8.7 14 6.9 12 2.7 3 230
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Maps

Further reading

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Notes

  1. The Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) and the Ecologist Party "The Greens" (PEV) contested the 1999 election in a coalition called Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU) and won a combined 9% of the vote and elected 17 MPs to parliament.
  2. Portuguese Communist Party (10 MPs) and "The Greens" (2 MPs) ran in coalition.
  3. Left Bloc / People's Democratic Union joint electoral list only in Madeira.
  4. The National Solidarity Party (PSN) ran a list in Vila Real district, but dropped out before election day and got just 7 votes. In the certified results, the votes are counted as invalid.

References

  1. Assembleia da República - Deputados e Grupos Parlamentares
  2. Assembleia da República - Deputados e Grupos Parlamentares
  3. Assembleia da República - Deputados e Grupos Parlamentares
  4. Assembleia da República - Deputados e Grupos Parlamentares
  5. Assembleia da República - Deputados e Grupos Parlamentares
  6. "António Guterres e o pântano ", Público, 31 December 2001. Retrieved 23 October 2022.
  7. "Há 21 anos o orçamento valeu um queijo limiano ", Observador, 12 October 2021. Retrieved 23 October 2022.
  8. "PS sofre hecatombe inesperada ", Público, 17 December 2001. Retrieved 23 October 2022.
  9. "A noite que mudou a vida de Guterres ", Expresso, 13 October 2016. Retrieved 23 October 2022.
  10. "Sampaio assina decreto que dissolve Parlamento e marca eleições antecipadas ", Público, 17 January 2002. Retrieved 23 October 2022.
  11. "Divisões no PSD", RTP, 17 January 2000. Retrieved 21 November 2021.
  12. "Durão Barroso desafia Santana Lopes", RTP, 19 January 2000. Retrieved 21 November 2021.
  13. "Guterres apresenta demissão depois de derrota nas autárquicas (act)", Jornal de Negócios, 17 December 2001. Retrieved 21 November 2021.
  14. "Acção Socialista", PS, 10 January 2002. Retrieved 7 June 2022.
  15. "Ferro Rodrigues eleito novo secretário-geral do PS ", Público, 20 January 2002. Retrieved 21 November 2021.
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  18. Gallaher, Michael (1992). "Comparing Proportional Representation Electoral Systems: Quotas, Thresholds, Paradoxes and Majorities"
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  27. "Josué, o "Marquês de Pombal" do PSN em Vila Real ", Público, 19 March 2002. Retrieved 25 June 2022.

External links

See also